Computer
by ahiijny
Summary: Mio gets a new computer.
1. 4 pm to 6 pm

**日常 ****- nichijou, Arawi Keiichi**

* * *

4:13 pm.

Mio stares blankly at the foreign object sitting in her room. "Umm… Sister?" Mio calls. "What's that doing in my room?"

"Ah, the computer?" Yoshino grins, walking up the stairs. "It's yours now. Surprise!"

"Huh?..." Mio slowly turns towards the door. "But…"

Her eyes narrow. "Why?"

"It's the virtual age nowadays, isn't it?" says Yoshino. "Practically _everyone_ has a computer nowadays. I'm sure that it'll come in handy for your studies." She takes Mio into the room and points to another foreign object sitting on the desk. "See, it even came with a printer!"

"Uh… sure…" Mio says slowly. "But what's the occasion? Why now?"

"Mou~…" Yoshino puts her hands on her hips. "Your sister went all the way out to get you a new computer, and all you can do is be suspicious? Hmph."

Mio's takes a step backwards. "All the more reason to be suspicious. Sister."

"Ah, well, it's nothing special." Yoshino waves her hand. "One of my classmates just got a brand new computer, so she gave her old one to me. That's all."

"And you gave it to me?…"

"I already have access to the latest computers in college, so I don't really need one." Yoshino gestures towards the computer. "Ta-da! Here you go!"

"Huh…" Mio doesn't let her guard down.

"I hope it's of use to you! Later, then," Yoshino says as she walks out of the room.

Mio maintains her guarded stance for five seconds. Then, she relaxes and sighs. "A computer, huh?"

Mio presses the power button on the computer. "I have an English assignment due tomorrow. Sakurai-sensei did say that typed assignments were a lot easier for her to read… I guess I could save some time by typing it up."

* * *

**コンピュータ**

**"Computer"**

* * *

4:21 pm.

Mio reads over the assignment sheet as the computer boots up. "Hm… A two page double-spaced written piece… Use at least five vocabulary words and underline them… Use at least ten adjectives and bold or circle them… Mm."

She looks up at the bulky monitor and sees that the computer desktop has finally loaded. "That's pretty straightforward. This should take no time at all." She stretches her arms and plops herself into the seat in front of her computer.

Mio has used computers at school in the LL room before, so she's familiar with basic tasks like word processing.

Wait… This computer has Windows 95.

Mio blinks. She hadn't really been paying attention when the computer was booting up, but with the start menu and desktop image, it's unmistakable.

It's Windows 95.

Mio blinks. "Huh. What an old computer. I can see why sister's friend would want to get rid of it." She shrugs. "Oh well, doesn't matter. It still works, all the same."

She finds the Microsoft Word icon on the desktop and double-clicks it. Several seconds pass.

Nothing happens.

She double-clicks it again.

Nothing happens.

She double-clicks it again.

Nothing happens.

"Why isn't it working?" Mio moves the mouse around. "The mouse is moving, so the mouse can't be broken."

She tries opening _My Computer_.

Nothing happens.

She tries opening _Network Neighborhood_.

Nothing happens.

She tries opening _Recycling Bin_.

Nothing happens.

"ONEE-CHAN!?"

* * *

4:28 pm.

"Ah, it's an age-old prank!" Yoshino says, smiling.

"Huh." Mio looks unamused.

"You take a screenshot of the desktop, set that as the desktop image, and you uncheck _Show Desktop Icons_ in the dropdown menu." Yoshino moves the mouse around, navigating through several menus. "You're fooled into thinking that the icons are there, but actually, it's just the background image!"

Yoshino steps away from the desk. "There, it should be fixed." Mio double-clicks the icon, and sure enough, the _My Computer_ window appears.

"Ah… thanks, sister."

Yoshino smiles as she walks to the door. "No problem, Mio! Just remember…" She winks and puts a finger up to her lips. "Always annotate!"

And then she's gone.

Mio blinks. Then, she slowly turns to her computer, deciding to ignore her sister and her random comments.

"All right then, let's get to work." She double-clicks the _Microsoft Word_ icon.

A black window suddenly appears. Text begins rapidly filling up the window.

_Ku ku ku ku ku ku ku ku ku ku ku ku ku ku ku ku ku …_

Mio stares blankly as the same word appears over and over again.

"This isn't Microsoft Word..." Mio puts her finger to her chin.

She closes the window. "More of that pranking, huh… That _classmate_ of hers is turning out to be very troublesome."

Mio shrugs. "Well, I should be able to get to Word with the start menu." She clicks _Start_, then _Programs_, then _Microsoft Office_, then _Microsoft Word_.

A black window opens.

"Not again," Mio groans, moving the mouse towards the _X_ button.

Another black window appears on top of the first one.

"Huh?"

A third black window appears. Then, a fourth. Then, a fifth. A sixth. A seventh. An eighth. A ninth.

More and more black windows are opening faster and faster. The entire screen is filling up with black windows.

Mio stares incredulously at the monitor.

There's so many windows open now that the tabs in the taskbar have started grouping together.

_51 cmd _▾

_58 cmd _▾

_68 cmd _▾

_85 cmd _▾

_113 cmd _▾

_156 cmd _▾

_218 cmd _▾

_303 cmd _▾

"ONEE-CHAN!?"

* * *

4:31 pm.

"Ah, it's the program that my classmate made!" Yoshino grins. "The one that opens up more of itself! Heh, heh… She must have switched the Word shortcut with a shortcut to the program."

"Well fix it, already!" Mio points to her assignment paper. "I have an assignment to type up for tomorrow!"

"No biggie. I'll just force-restart." She holds down the power button until the computer shuts off. She presses it once more and the computer starts up again.

"Ugh…"

"Good old _imo .bat_," Yoshino giggles.

The computer beeps.

Mio points to the error message on the monitor. "Uh… sister? What does that mean?"

Yoshino walks over to it. "Oh dear… It seems that some vital system files have been deleted."

"WHAT."

"Maybe it was a virus?... Mio, did you run any suspicious programs lately?"

"Yes. Two." Mio glares.

"Ah, I see." Yoshino puts her finger to her chin. "What a tricky girl, that classmate! Writing a ._bat_ file to delete system32…"

"Can you fix it?"

"Of course!" Yoshino grins. "I may not look it, but I actually know a lot about computers."

Mio sighs. "Sure."

Yoshino turns to the computer. "Though with system32 deleted, I'm not sure what else I can do... I'll just reformat the drive and reinstall Windows."

"Is that going to take long?"

"Shouldn't take too long!" Yoshino takes a CD out of her pocket. "Besides, this is the perfect opportunity to upgrade to something _really_ new! That Windows 95 seemed pretty old, but I had no real excuse to upgrade it until now."

Mio read the CD label. "Windows… XP?"

"Yup!"

"O… kay?"

* * *

5:37 pm.

"Sister… I thought you said it wasn't going to take long..." Mio looks up at Yoshino.

"An hour isn't long at all in the grand scheme of things." Yoshino looks at the screen and clicks a few things.

"Ugh…" Mio rolls over in her bed. "Is it going to take much longer?"

"It's going to be done soon!" Yoshino announces cheerfully.

Mio sighs. "Well, at least I've gotten some studying done for the science test in the meantime." She flips a page in her notebook.

"You have a science test tomorrow?"

"Yeah, didn't I tell you?"

"Mm… Okay, and it's done!"

Mio stares, and then sets her notebook down onto her bed. "Really? No other pranks that your classmate might've left?"

Yoshino shakes her head confidently. "No, this is a brand new install of Windows. Enjoy!"

Mio walks up to the seat and sits down. Yoshino watches cheerfully over Mio's shoulder. Mio double-clicks the _Microsoft Office Word 2000_ icon and then the Microsoft Word window appears, just like it should.

"Ah…" Mio smiles. "Thank you, sister."

Yoshino walks out the door. "No problem! And remember…" Yoshino winks, holding up two fingers. "Always use meaningful names!"

Mio decides to ignore her sister's random comment.

"All right then…" She puts her fingers on the keyboard. "At least with all of that waiting, I've had time to think about what I should write…"

She begins typing.

* * *

6:03 pm.

"Done!" Mio smiles. "I'll read through it once more, and then I'll print it."

Mio scrolls to the top and begins reading silently.

The lights in her room dim and then brighten again. Mio turns around and looks up. "Huh… a power surge."

Suddenly, a shiver runs down her spine. She slowly turns back to her computer, dread filling her body.

It's the boot-up screen.

Mio's eyes widen. "I… saved, didn't I?"

Outside, the sky is already dark blue. The sun set a while ago. There's only the faintest tinge of yellow in the west horizon.

"Di… Didn't I?"

* * *

6:41 pm.

This time, Mio saves her work as often as possible as she retypes her assignment.

Mio types her last sentence, saves, and then collapses into her seat with a sigh of relief. "Finally…" She turns around and glares defiantly at the light fixture on the ceiling. "Even if there's a power surge now, my work won't be lost."

She continues glaring at the lights for a while, but no power surge comes. Mio sighs, turns around, and begins rereading her work, looking for mistakes.

A few minutes later, Mio is satisfied. She clicks _File_, and then _Print_.

The entire screen flickers, and then Mio's hard work is replaced with a blue screen and a lot of English text.

Mio's eye twitches.

"ONEE-CHAN!?"

* * *

6:50 pm.

"It's called the blue screen of death," Yoshino explains as the computer finishes booting up again.

"Uh-huh." Mio looks very unamused.

"The typical solution is to restart the computer."

"Uh-huh."

"Well, it's nothing to worry about. It happens every now and then." Yoshino clicks the _don't send_ button on the error report popup. "Okay, that should be it."

Mio plops herself in front of the computer, glaring at the monitor. "Hn."

"Remember," Yoshino says, sticking out her tongue, "to always use return in queries!"

Mio doesn't look away from the monitor. "Hn."

The door shuts.

"Now then, computer…" Mio's eyes narrow. "You're going to help me print my assignment… Or else."

The monitor sits there.

Mio double-clicks on _My Documents_.

The icon turns blue, but the window doesn't open.

Mio quadruple-clicks.

Two windows open.

Mio raises an eyebrow.

"Never mind… let's just print it and get it over with."

After some struggling with several clicks, Mio finally manages to open her assignment document. Being the perfectionist that she is, however, she starts reading it over one final time to look for mistakes.

She actually finds a typo. At one point, she had accidentally typed the word "the" twice by mistake. Mio clicks the mouse in order to select the word and delete it.

Nothing happens.

Mio clicks harder, dragging it over the word.

The highlight appears, but doesn't cover the word completely

Mio clenches her teeth and presses down on the mouse as hard as she can, slowly and painstakingly dragging the mouse over the word. Then, something happens too fast for her eyes to catch, and suddenly, an entire chunk of text is in the wrong place.

Mio closes her eyes, puts her left hand on her forehead, and takes a deep, shuddering breath. Then, she opens her eyes again, glaring at the monitor.

"This mouse is clearly useless." She moves her hands to the keyboard and uses the arrow keys and the shift button to select and delete the misplaced text. She arrow-keys down and retypes the misplaced text. She presses _ctrl_ and _s_ simultaneously to save, and then quickly looks down to add a space that she remembers is missing, and then saves again.

She looks up and freezes. The entire document is empty. She immediately jerks away from the keyboard, terrified of doing anything to make it worse. Sweat drops trickle down her face.

"What the heck?"

Unbeknownst to Mio, a few seconds ago, she had mistakenly pressed _ctrl_ and _a_ instead of _ctrl _and _s_, thereby selecting the entire document. When she had added the space, that had replaced all of the text in the document with one space.

Mio continues sweating profusely. "Wait… don't panic." She gulps. "Panic will just make things worse." Her eyes scour the screen in search of something that will help her situation. They lock onto the blue, curly arrow on in a toolbar near the top of the screen.

Mio smiles nervously. "Of course!... The undo button!" She slowly moves her hand towards the mouse.

The power goes out.

The power goes back on again.

Mio sits there completely frozen as the computer automatically starts booting up again.

"AAAAHHHHHHHH!"

* * *

日常 - nichijou, Arawi Keiichi


	2. 7 pm to 8 pm

日常 - nichijou, Arawi Keiichi

* * *

7:18 pm.

Mio has spent the last 15 minutes frantically trying to retrieve her hard work.

There's an cold, twisty feeling in her stomach in her stomach. She leans back in her seat and slowly exhales, trembling. "It's gone… I can't find it anywhere…"

Mio throws up her arms, flipping over the keyboard. "Okay, never mind that! Never mind the computer! I'm just going to write this out by hand! Who cares about computers, anyway?"

She jams her hand into her tote bag, pulls out a binder, and takes out a sheet of lined paper. She takes out her pencil case and begins writing her name and the date on the sheet of paper.

* * *

7:26 pm.

"Ah, I made a typo," Mio mutters. She reaches into her pencil case, searching for an eraser.

A few seconds pass.

Her hand is still rummaging.

More seconds pass.

Mio leaps out of her seat, yanks her pencil case wide open, and dumps the contents onto the floor. Mio scours the items on the ground with wide eyes.

No eraser.

She looks in the upside-down pencil case once more, just in case the eraser got caught on something inside. The pencil case is completely empty.

No eraser.

Mio's eye twitches. She walks over to the door. "ONEE-CHAN, DO WE HAVE ANY ERASERS!?"

* * *

7:42 pm.

No, they don't.

There aren't any erasers at all in this entire household.

Resisting the urge to rip the assignment paper into shreds, Mio picks up a brand new piece of lined paper. She begins copying the text she's written so far onto the new sheet of paper, minus the mistake.

* * *

7:50 pm.

Mio's pencil snaps in half. She just made another typo, and she needs to start again.

* * *

8:05 pm.

Mio leaps out of her seat, takes a few shaky steps backwards, and leans against the door. She takes a deep breath. She just made another typo, and she needs to start again.

The full moon looms outside the window, as if mocking her.

* * *

8:25 pm.

Mio's assignment lies 50 percent complete on her desk. She made sure to write extra slowly this time. So far so good. No mistakes yet.

If this were Yukko, she probably wouldn't care. That girl would just cross out the mistake and rewrite it above or something. The double-spacing is useful for that. However, Mio is far more of a perfectionist than Yukko, and any mistakes are inexcusable. They just look bad, y'know? This is supposed to be a good copy, after all.

If she were Yukko, then she would've been done hours ago.

"Hello?" Mio speaks into the phone. "Ah, Yukko."

"Are you going to come over soon?" says Yukko's voice. "We're holding a last-minute study session for the science test at Nano-chan's house! In fact, Mai-chan may or may not be coming as well. I'm not sure though 'cause she just stared at me when I asked her..."

"Ah ha… yeah." Mio loops the phone cord around her hand. "I've just been having all sorts of trouble with that English assignment. It's like the universe doesn't want me to finish it."

"Oh, that English assignment?"

"Mm. As soon as I've finished, I'll come over."

"Wait, which English assignment?"

Mio stares soundlessly for a few seconds.

Yukko's talking to someone on the other side of the phone. "Oh, that one! Mn, thanks for reminding me, Nano-chan! Uh yeah, Mio-chan, no hurry, right? I'll finish that assignment right up, and then we can get started on that studying. Yeah."

"… Yeah."

Yukko hangs up.

After a long pause, Mio hangs up the phone as well. "Well… At least I'm not behind."

* * *

8:36 pm.

"Mio! Dinner!"

Mio sets down her pencil, smiling. "Just one more paragraph to go! I'm almost done. Heh…"

She walks out the door, gazing at her paper. This is her fourth try at writing it out by hand. Her fourth paper. And it's going to be her final copy. She won't make any more typos. She's practically done.

_Heh… Who said that four has to be unlucky anyway?_ Mio thinks as she trips over the Ethernet cord, tumbles uncontrollably down the stairs and slams into the ground on top of her right hand, breaking several finger bones.

* * *

日常 - nichijou, Arawi Keiichi


	3. 10 pm to 11 pm

日常 - nichijou, Arawi Keiichi

* * *

10:04 pm.

"How did you manage to break all of your fingers and your thumb as well?" Yoshino asks conversationally as they return from the hospital. She's holding a bag containing leftover Daiku Burger fries in her left hand.

"Quiet," Mio mutters. "You didn't tell me you put a wire there."

"But the Internet is a necessity once you have a computer! I took the liberty of installing all of the necessary wires myself before you got home from school."

Mio grumbles.

"You should be more careful, Mio. Be more aware of your surroundings."

Mutter, grumble.

"By the way…" Yoshino pauses with the key in the lock. "How are you going to finish writing your report if your hand is out of commission like that?"

Mio lifts up her right hand. All the fingers on that hand are locked into place with metallic splints. Her sister is right. There's no way she'll be able to finish writing her assignment like this. Also, left-handed writing is completely out of the question.

"Crap."

"Huh? What's that?"

Mio clenches her left fist. "I'll finish typing it as quickly as possible, and then print it. No sweat."

"Ahh, giving the computer another try? Mm." Yoshino pushes open the front door. "Though it may seem troublesome now, getting used to computers is a good investment in this day and age."

Mio flicks on the lights, storms upstairs and slams open the door to her bedroom.

"Remember to always validate the input!" Yoshino's voice comes from downstairs.

Mio ignores her sister's random comment and turns on the monitor. She awkwardly moves the mouse around with her left hand, and with difficulty, opens up a new Microsoft Word document.

Typing with only her left hand is going to be trickier, but at least she has an 80 percent complete manuscript to copy off of. She sets the lined sheet of paper next to her and begins typing.

* * *

10:10 pm.

Suddenly, a pop-up appears.

_The list of common French (France) AutoCorrections is not available. The feature is not currently installed. Would you like to install it now?_

"What—" But Mio had been in the middle of pressing _enter_ to create a new paragraph, so she had already selected _yes_.

_Preparing to install…_

"Huh!?" Mio frowns. "What're you talking about? This is English, not French!" She clicks _cancel_ repeatedly, but nothing happens.

Thirty seconds pass.

_Error 1706. Setup cannot find the required files. Check your connection to the network, or CD-ROM drive. For other potential solutions to this problem, see C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\1033\SETUP .CHM_

"Well of course not, idiot," Mio hisses. "I didn't ask you to install anything and I don't want any French language... Geez! THAT'S NOT EVEN FRENCH! IT'S ENGLISH! ENGLISH, FRIGGIN' COMPUTER!" Mio slams the table with her left hand.

She closes her eyes, forcing herself to take deep breaths.

* * *

10:15 pm.

Mio saves.

_This file is read only. (C:\...\English Assignment…)_

"What do you mean read only?" Mio's voice is dangerously quiet. "I didn't set it as read only. I saved it just fine a minute ago." She throws up her arms. "What the hell, man!?"

After glaring for a while, Mio slowly gets up, goes to the door, and calls for her sister.

Yoshino comes in. "Hm, that's an annoying glitch," she says, looking at the screen. "Just name the file something else and then save it."

"Hn…" Mio grumbles.

"Remember to always be user-friendly," Yoshino waves as she walks out the door.

Mio glares at the computer monitor.

* * *

10:23 pm.

"What the hell?" Mio squints at the monitor. "Why's that last sentence all in caps?" She tries to arrow-key over to the beginning of the sentence, but instead, the cursor highlights the sentence as she goes left.

"What. The. Hell." Mio's eye twitches. They're starting to get somewhat bloodshot. Finally, she calls her sister in.

"Ah, it looks like your shift button got stuck in place," Yoshino says, jiggling the aforementioned key free. She walks out of the room, making a V shape with her fingers. "Remember, always declare your variables first!"

Mio exhales slowly and shakily, trying to keep her anger under control.

She glares at the keyboard. "Seriously?"

* * *

10:26 pm.

"Stickykeys?..." Mio's nose is pressed against the monitor. Her eyes are narrowed slits.

* * *

10:35 pm.

"Freaking lag!" Mio is standing up, leaning forward, and giving the computer monitor a death glare.

She's tried moving the mouse and typing on the keyboard, but there has been absolutely no motion at all on the screen for the last five minutes.

Mio begins involuntarily making a hissing sound as the seconds tick by.

* * *

10:38 pm.

_This program is not responding._

_To return to Windows and check the status of the program, click Cancel._

_If you choose to end the program immediately, you will lose any unsaved data. To end the program now, click End Now._

_End Now__ · __Cancel_

Mio hits _End Now_ without hesitation.

Nothing happens.

Hitting the limit of her patience, Mio ducks under the desk and violently pulls out the power cord for the computer. The sound of the computer fan immediately dies away.

Mio plugs the cord back in again, resigning herself to another long wait as the computer boots up again. She slumps into her seat and pinches the bridge of her nose.

* * *

10:55 pm.

For some reason, the red and green in the computer monitor have disappeared. Everything on the screen is now shades of blue.

Mio shakes her head. She yanks on the computer monitor wire, slamming it into the edge of the desk. The monitor image flickers, and now everything is shades of blue, cyan, and green. Red is still missing, though.

Mio seethes.

* * *

11:15 pm.

Mio navigates the cursor over to the print button.

Click.

Nothing happens.

Click.

Nothing happens.

Mio shoots out of her chair and slams her hands down on the table. "DAMN IT, I clicked on the button! What the HELL is wrong with you!?"

It's getting late, and she's running out of time. She's not sure if her trembling is because of her despair, her anger, or the effort of restraining herself from smashing the computer.

* * *

11:26 pm.

Visibly weary, Mio walks into Yoshino's room. "Can you help me?... My computer's not responding. Again."

Yoshino stands up from her desk. "Very well."

Mio's computer monitor had frozen a while ago. Moving the mouse would only elicit a very exaggerated response after a delay of 8.5 seconds.

Yoshino bends down to examine the case while Mio stands back and watches impatiently.

"Here's the problem," Yoshino announces, getting back up. "Have you noticed?"

"What."

Yoshino holds up a finger. "It's a lot quieter."

Mio wants her sister to just get on with it.

"The fan must have malfunctioned, so your computer is overheating." Yoshino smiles. "When a computer overheats, its processing power goes way down. No wonder it's being so laggy!"

"Can you fix it?..."

"Mm." Yoshino stares contemplatively at the computer. "I could fiddle around with the internal connections to see if something got knocked loose, or I could go out and buy a new fan and install it."

Mio sighs, clutching her head. "Is that going to take long?"

"There could be a very simple solution," says Yoshino.

* * *

11:39 pm.

Fiddling around with the insides was a complete failure.

Mio taps her foot in impatience, waiting for her older sister to finish going out and buying a new fan from some computer store that allegedly stayed open late.

She tries to use the free time efficiently by studying for her test tomorrow, but she's having trouble focusing. Just... ugh. Stupid computer!

* * *

日常 - nichijou, Arawi Keiichi


	4. 12 am to 2 am

日常 - nichijou, Arawi Keiichi

* * *

12:43 am.

The new fan is a lot louder, but at least it works.

"Remember to always use extra spacing for clarity purposes!" Yoshino calls as she leaves the room.

Mio stares blankly at the monitor as the computer continues to boot up really slowly.

* * *

12:52 am.

Mio turns on the printer and puts a sheet of paper into it. She then opens up her document on the computer and hits ctrl + p.

"Please work already," Mio pleads. "I have a test tomorrow."

* * *

1:03 am.

"Hmm, this is a problem, isn't it?" Yoshino murmurs as she examines the printer, which still hasn't printed anything. "Printers are always tricky. Maybe it's the connection. There are things you can try. Hm… Restart the printer, unplug the printer for one minute and then plug it in again, restart the computer, reinstall the printer software… Oh yeah— take the disk, just in case."

Mio accepts the installation disk from her older sister.

"I'm going to bed soon, so hurry up and finish up, okay Mio?" Yoshino smiles as she leaves the room. "Remember to use camelback notation!"

Mio turns to the printer. She lets out an exasperated sigh.

* * *

1:08 am.

The problem with the placement of the printer is that the power cord and the USB cord are both right up against the wall. The printer's too heavy for Mio to move on her own, so she has to struggle with unplugging the cords without a clear view of what's going on back there.

It takes Mio far more than one minute to plug in the power cord again.

* * *

1:15 am.

Mio's left arm is now sore from all of that reaching and fiddling with the cord back there, and now she has to try reinstalling the printer software with only her left hand, a stupid mouse, and a flickering monitor.

Mio is twitching.

* * *

1:36 am.

And of course, the keyboard just _had_ to conk out on her, too.

She tries plugging the keyboard cord into several different USB slots, but that doesn't help.

Mio rests her injured right hand on her forehead as she continues through the installation process with painstaking slowness. She manages to get through the part of the installation with the registration key by typing it in using the On-Screen Keyboard, but that took way too long.

Mio doesn't notice, but her lips start bleeding slightly because of her teeth clenching.

* * *

1:47 am.

And now Mio is forced to wait for the lag to subside as the antivirus that her sister installed begins its automatic update.

Fun.

* * *

2:05 am.

Mio goes onto the Internet to start searching for ways to fix the printer problem, since that software reinstall and computer reboot didn't work at all. Mio tries a promising-looking link.

The first thing that appears is a pop-up claiming that her computer has been infected with 1085 viruses, and that she should install the "TOTAPO" antivirus software right away to resolve this problem. Mio rolls her eyes. She's not stupid. She navigates her mouse to the X in the top right corner and clicks it.

Suddenly, an antivirus popup appears in the bottom-right corner, asking if it's okay to execute "TOTAPO .exe".

Mio's eye twitches. She clicks _Disallow_.

Windows Installer appears.

She hits the _Cancel_ button with a snarl.

The screen turns black.

Mio's teeth clamp down involuntarily and a few drops of blood splatter onto the screen.

An installation progress bar begins rapidly filling up.

Mio's eyes widen ferociously. Then, the computer abruptly powers down as she yanks out the power cord.

After plugging in the cord again and allowing it to start booting up, Mio leans back in her seat, glaring at the monitor with a murderous expression on her face.

* * *

2:36 am.

Okay.

Okay, it's working now. After desperately searching the Internet without avail, she tried printing her work again in an act of desperation, and to her surprise, the printer actually started printing!

However, Mio knows better than to start celebrating. There are two pages to get through. Right now, the printer is still in the middle of the first page. She glares at the printer as the piece of paper emerges slowly. _You'd better get through the whole thing. Come on, screw up again. I. Dare. You._

The telltale clatter of the ink cartridges swishing back and forth suddenly grinds to a halt. The world is silent for a moment, except for the whine of the computer fan.

Then, the printer slowly spits out the page. On this sheet of paper, the text only goes down about three-quarters of the way, and then it cuts off abruptly in the middle of a line.

The printer idles. It shows no indication of continuing with the next page.

The stress ball in Mio's left hand explodes, sending foam chunks flying everywhere. She takes a few deep, shaky breaths.

* * *

2:43 am.

"Alright, we're going to try this again, okay?" If looks could kill, the printer would have exploded a long time ago. "I am going to press print. And then you are going to print my file. Okay!?"

The printer just sits there.

Mio clicks print, turns to the printer, and then spends the next several minutes glaring at the printer with concentrated killing intent. The printer still hasn't shown any indication that it's about to print something.

"Do you really want to die?" Mio holds up a fist.

Thirty seconds pass.

Finally, the printer begins printing the page. It jams up almost immediately.

Mio's eye twitches. Her left fist clenches so hard that it starts hurting.

* * *

日常 - nichijou, Arawi Keiichi


	5. 3 am to 4 am

日常 - nichijou, Arawi Keiichi

* * *

4:32 am.

Mio wants to smash her printer into pieces so badly.

She can't, though. If she does, she'll have absolutely no way of getting her assignment out of the computer and into hard copy form. They're at an impasse. The printer can screw up in as many creative ways as it possibly can, and it'll still be guaranteed safety from Mio's wrath because it knows that Mio can't risk destroying it. This just makes Mio hate it more.

Over the past couple of hours, the printer has managed to freeze up, falsely proclaim that it's out of ink, jam up again, lag, spend 10 minutes printing a page excruciatingly slowly before abandoning it halfway, suddenly turn off in the middle of a print job for no reason, leak several weeks' worth of ink, jam up again, jam up again, and then turn off and spend 10 minutes booting up. About three or four times each.

"I'll give you one more chance," Mio says with her eyes closed, facing the computer monitor. "If you don't print it this time, I swear I'm going to _murder_ you."

The printer finishes booting up, and then makes the typical post-boot-up clatter as the ink trays shift into position.

Mio navigates through the menus on the computer and clicks _print_. She then moves the mouse over to the printer icon at the bottom right of the screen in order to open up the little window that displays the state of the printer. Or at least she tries to.

She moves the mouse. She moves it again, this time more violently.

The cursor isn't moving at all.

Mio swirls the mouse around wildly.

No movement.

Mio picks up the mouse and looks at the bottom. The red light has gone out completely.

_CRACK._ Mio stands up, opens her left hand, and lets the mouse fragments clatter to the ground. Her body tremors.

The printer begins beeping. Mio slowly walks over to read the error message.

_Critical error. Printer restarting…_

_BAM! _

_CRASH._

Mio's knuckles are a bit bloody now. She stands over the severely damaged remains of the printer that are lying on the ground. The frayed ends of wires dangle over the edge of the table.

Something flickers in the corner of her eye. She turns and sees the green-tinted CRT computer monitor. The image shimmers, as if there's something wrong with the connection.

"And you. You've been pissing me off all evening, too." Mio stalks her way over to the computer. "Always lagging out, always crashing, always flickering. Why did you have to make things so hard, huh, you idiot!? Can't you just—"

A dialog box appears.

_Microsoft Word has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience. _

_If you were in the middle of something, the information you were working on might be—_

Something snaps.

Suddenly, Mio is practically teleporting to the side of the table, slamming her left fist into the side of the monitor as hard as she can. Mio's punch sends the monitor flying right off the table, ripping out the monitor's power and data cords. The image flickers once and then goes out as the monitor careens towards the ground. Something begins sparking inside the monitor.

Mio's body is still carrying through with the punch when the monitor slams into the ground. Right now, her left hand is directly in front of the glass screen, and the rest of her body is off to the side.

The monitor has been in contact with the floor for barely an instant when an amazingly loud bang shakes the room.

The next thing Mio knows, her left hand is riddled with glass shards and deep cuts. Her eyes widen. Her ears are still ringing from the bang, and she doesn't feel any pain yet. She turns her head and sees lots of sharp glass debris splayed in front of the monitor.

She twitches.

Then, Mio clenches her teeth. "That's it, OUT!" She marches forward and rips the computer case out from under the desk, dragging with it the keyboard and some other wires that she doesn't care about. "You're absolutely worthless, you freaking idiot! GAH! JUST GET THE HELL OUT!"

Yoshino is already in the hallway. "Mio? What was that loud bang? Are you okay?"

Mio continues dragging the computer through the hallway, walking past her older sister as if she isn't even there.

"Mio?..."

The infuriated and sleep-deprived high school girl slams open the door and steps into the night, dragging the computer behind her. The moon is pretty close to the west horizon, and it's going to be sunrise in less than an hour.

Yoshino appears at the doorway with a concerned look. "Mio, what are you doing?"

Mio doesn't respond. She continues walking down the sidewalk until she reaches the trash collection area next to the light pole. With a yell and a heave, she slams the computer there right next to the pole.

"Good riddance." Mio pants.

"Mio!" Yoshino is running up to her.

Mio slowly comes down from her anger rush. She starts feeling pain in her left hand. She holds it up and sees that it's a lot bloodier now. Glass shards of various sizes are still embedded in her hand.

Yoshino notices the blood. She stops several paces away, putting her hand over her mouth. "Wh... Mio, what happened to your hand?"

Mio wobbles as she turns around. She smiles sheepishly, wincing. "Uh… I think… maybe I should go to the hospital."

She winces again. The pain is steadily getting more and more intense.

"Cr… sh… f… kk… ch…" Mio screws her eyes shut, gritting her teeth. Blood flows down her hand.

"Oh my, that looks bad." Yoshino stands there, wavering. Then, she smiles nervously. "Quickly, come back into the house."

* * *

日常 - nichijou, Arawi Keiichi


	6. 7 am to 8 am

日常 - nichijou, Arawi Keiichi

* * *

7:33 am.

Mio sighs. Her head is starting to hurt.

"You okay?" Yoshino asks as they enter the house.

"Hn…" Mio takes off her shoes. She's talking very quietly. "Just sleep-deprived. I didn't get any sleep at all, except for the hour or so in the waiting room, after the painkillers kicked in."

"Hm. Do you want to stay home today?"

Mio shakes her head. "I'd like to, but I have a major science test today. I can't skip that."

* * *

7:59 am.

Yukko gapes at Mio's hands.

Mio looks away. "Um, I'm just showing it to you, and no one else, okay? 'Cause I don't want everyone to make a big deal out of it."

Yukko suddenly bows. "I'm sorry."

Mio shrugs. "That's just how life goes. Sometimes, people get injured. It's unfortunate, but it happens." She looks away sheepishly. "It could've been easily avoided, too. Uh, this is actually really embarrassing, so please don't mention it to anyone."

Yukko looks around the classroom. There's no one else here yet. Yukko looks down and runs her hand through her hair distractedly. "Well yeah, I won't, but you won't be able to hide it forever. Um…"

"I know, I know." Mio sighs.

Yukko glances at Mio's bandaged left hand. "Er… did you get stitches?"

Mio grimaces. "Yeah."

"Yeah, I've had stitches before, too. Meh."

"Huh."

"So, how did you get that injury, Mio-chan?"

"Um… I'd rather not say." Mio picks up her tote bag. "Anyway, the reason I asked you to come here early today. Um… see, a lot of things happened, and I ended up unable to finish up my English assignment."

Yukko perks up. "Can I help you with that?"

Mio nods. "Yeah, that's what I was just about to ask, thanks." She smiles weakly, pulling out a sheet of lined paper.

Yukko quickly skims over the text already on the page as Mio sets down a pen in front of Yukko.

"I already know what I want to put for the last paragraph. Could you write while I dictate it to you?"

Yukko flips to the second page and uncaps her pen, nodding.

When Yukko finishes writing, there aren't any spelling mistakes or typos. That's way better than Mio was expecting.

Mio smiles tiredly, bending down and taking the sheet. "Thank you so much."

"No problem." Yukko twirls the pen around her hand before dropping it on the ground. She bends down to pick it up. "Say, are you going to be okay for the test?"

Mio sighs. "I've stayed up late before. No biggie."

"No, I mean how are you going to write the test?"

Mio stares at her hands. "Oh. I hadn't thought of that."

Yukko smiles nervously. "Well, I'm sure Nakamura-sensei will think of something."

"Yeah..." Mio looks up. "We didn't have any other homework, right?"

Yukko reaches into her tote bag and pulls out her own English assignment. "Phew, didn't forget it. Nope, just this and the test."

Mio sits down in front of Yukko.

They stare at each other.

"No, that can't be it..." Mio blinks several times, trying to remember.

"No, that is it. Isn't it?"

"No, I think I'm forgetting something."

"You mean that not it? Is there still something due today?" Yukko begins looking through her bag.

Mio wipes her forehead with her arm. "Um..."

Yukko yanks out an assignment sheet and they both groan simultaneously. "The report!" they shout.

"Oh no," Yukko sets down the paper. "It's think of your own topic..."

Mio looks at her hands.

Yukko grabs Mio by the shoulders. "Well, at least that class is after lunch, right? It's going to be okay!"

"Ugh..." Mio clutches her head with her left hand. "Okay, we cram for the science test during the first two periods, do the test, and then finish the report during lunch."

Yukko claps her hands together, smiling nervously. "Yeah, that's the spirit."

Mio looks up at the clock. "About half an hour until class starts..."

"Who did what for the test again?" Yukko takes out her notebook and begins flipping through it furiously. "This is bad... I can't remember any names!"

"Yukko, we just went over that a few days ago!" Mio says, taking out her notebook as well. "The first guy was... Um..." She blinks heavily, pressing her fingers to her left temple. Her mind is whirring with fuzz and static. Come on, she should know all this. She's a good student.

Ugh, her brain is just not working today. She flips through her notes, trying to find the relevant page. "He's in here somewhere..."

Yukko laughs unhappily. "We are so dead."

Mio sighs.

* * *

**日常 ****- nichijou, Arawi Keiichi**


End file.
